Understand
Ignored entirely or dismissed as "suburbia" by travel guides, Chiba is generally regarded as the most boring of the cities surrounding Tokyo. But, as William Gibson fans will know, there is one excellent reason for visiting Chiba, as the "Tokyo-Chiba
urban sprawl" is where much of Neuromancer (ISBN 0441569595) is set:
: In Japan, he'd known with a clenched and absolute certainty, he'd find his cure. In Chiba. Either in a registered clinic or in the shadowland of black medicine. Synonymous with implants, nerve-splicing, and microbionics, Chiba was a magnet for the Sprawl's techno-criminal subcultures...
As it happens, Gibson's dystopian cyberpunk visions are at times difficult to correlate with the reality of modern-day Chiba, but the area still makes a reasonably interesting day trip from Tokyo if you have time to spare and prefer high technology toys over mouldering temples.
[[Image:chiba monorail.jpg|thumb|300px|Chiba Urban Monorail.The appearance in which it operates between modern buildings is worthy of the glance.
[[Image:Makuhari.jpg|thumb|300px|The street in Kaihin-Makuhari is beautiful and attractive. Beach and the shopping mall are scattered to be near. It can be said typical Urban Resort in Japan.
Get in
By plane
The JR Narita Line links Chiba directly to Narita's international airport. A few N'EX limited expresses stop at Chiba on their way to Tokyo, but usually the ordinary rapid service trains are a better bet.
By train
Train is the obvious means of arrival, as a dense web of routes links Chiba to Tokyo and points in the vicinity.
By bus
Airport Limousine bus link Chiba to Haneda and Narita airport.
Get around
By monorail
The two lines of the suspended Chiba Urban Monorail (千葉都市モノレール) , the world's longest suspended monorail and almost (but not quite) an attraction in themselves, connect the port (千葉みなと Chiba Minato) to Chiba station and then branch out to the northwest and northeast.
See
